Linux News - Page 247 of 482 - CNX Software

August 27, 2018September 29, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 15 Comments

RockPro64 RK3399 Board Linux Review with Ubuntu 18.04 + LXDE

Let’s do one more RK3399 Linux review using Pine64 RockPro64 development board. After shortly checking out the hardware, I’ll test Ubuntu 18.04 “Bionic” LXDE on the board, test 3D graphics acceleration, video playback, USB storage and network performance among other things on the board. RockPro64 Board Unboxing The board came in a cardboard package, and the sticker made it clear I had received the 2GB LPDDR4 version. Even after FriendlyELEC NanoPi M4 announcement, Rockchip ROCKPro64 is still the cheapest RK3399 development board around, so it should come as no surprise that the board does not come with any accessories by default. Another way to keep the price low was not to include any built-in storage apart from SPI flash, so instead most people will either boot from micro SD card or an eMMC flash module both of which need to be purchase separately. Another cost-saving is the lack of built-in […]

August 27, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

UltraZed-EV Starter Kit Support Simultaneous 4K Encoding and Decoding with Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ EV MPSoC

Xilinx unveiled Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC‘s combining Arm Cortex A53/R5 cores with FPGA fabric back in 2015. and we started to see development boards and products based on the solution starting in 2017 with offerings such as AXIOM Board, TRENZ TE0808 SoM, or more recently 96Boards compliant Ultra96 development board. All last three boards have one thing in common: they all use an Zynq UltraScale+ GC MPSoC that adds a Mali-400MP2 GPU to CG MPSoC family. But there’s also a third EV family which standards for “Embedded Vision”, and adds support for 4K H.264 / H.265 hardware video codec capable of simultaneous encode and decode. The platform targets multimedia, automotive ADAS, surveillance, and other embedded vision applications. So far, I don’t think I had seen any boards based on Ultrascale+ EV MPSoC, but AVNet – following up on their UltraZed-EG starter kit – has now launched an UltraZed-EV starter kit powered […]

August 26, 2018August 27, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Arduino Releases Command Line Interface (CLI) Alpha Preview

So far, AFAIK the only official ways to program Arduino boards were through the Arduino IDE program, or the cloud-based Arduino Create which works in your web browser and does not require any installation on your computer. While graphical interfaces are nice and user-friendly, many of us are more productive while working using the command line, especially if commands can be scripted. So Arduino decided to work on a command line interface (CLI) for professional users, and have just announced a preview release. arduino-cli works in Windows, Linux, and Mac OS, and allows you install libraries, boards, and cores (e.g. esp32 Arduino core), compile the code, and upload the binary to the target board. If you want to get started quickly, you can download the binary “alpha” releases in the announcement board, but instead I opted to build the client myself as explained on Github. Everything below is done in […]

August 24, 2018August 24, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 43 Comments

NanoPi M4 Raspberry Pi Inspired RK3399 Board Launched for $65 and Up

As expected, FriendlyELEC has now launched NanoPi M4 board, a lower cost version of NanoPC-T4 Rockchip RK3399 SBC, and mostly following Raspberry Pi form factor. How much you may ask? That would be $65 plus shipping for the 2GBRAM version, and $95 for the 4GB RAM version, which means it sells in the same ballpark as RockPro64 board. NanoPi M4 board specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3399 big.LITTLE hexa-core processor with 2x Arm Cortex-A72 @ up to 2.0GHz, 4x Cortex-A53 @ up to 1.5GHz, a Mali-T864 GPU with support OpenGL ES1.1/2.0/3.0/3.1, OpenVG1.1, OpenCL, DX11, and AFBC, and a VPU with 4K VP9 and 4K 10-bit H265/H264 6decoding System Memory – Dual-channel 4GB LPDDR3-1866, or dual-channel 2GB DDR3-1866 Storage – eMMC module socket, micro SD card slot Video Output HDMI 2.0a up to 4K @ 60 Hz with HDCP 1.4/2.2 support 4-Lane MIPI-DSI connector Audio – 3.5mm headphone jack, HDMI digital audio […]

August 24, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 32 Comments

TableX Arm Linux Tablet Runs Armbian Ubuntu, To Launch for 89 Euros

If you want an Arm Linux laptop, you have already some choices with products such as Pine64 Pinebook, or Olimex TERES-I open source hardware laptop, but if instead you’d rather do without keyboard, and get an Arm Linux tablet, choices are much more limited, if any at all. Back in 2012, Allwinner A10 based PengPod 700 & 1000 tablets were available for the company has since folded, and this year, RasPad case launched to allow you to build your own thick tablet with a Raspberry Pi 3 (B+). However, if you want to normal looking tablet, your best option right now is to get an Android tablet and mess around to install Linux on it. That’s not for everyone, and the good news is that what looks like a proper – albeit low-end – Arm Linux tablet is coming to market soon with TableX. TableX preliminary hardware specifications: SoC – […]

August 23, 2018August 23, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 13 Comments

MuxPi Board Relies on NanoPi NEO to Enable Remote Testing of Development Boards

Product development often occurs in different location over the world, there may be one team in Asia, and another in Europe and the US. At the beginning, the number of working samples for a board may be limited, so the project manager may have to decide who gets the boards since those may not be available to all teams. So it would be great if somehow there was a way to do remote testing of boards, so maybe the team in Asia could setup the testbed, used it during there time, and once they are back home, the US team can take over remotely to carry on their own development work on the hardware. That’s exactly what MuxPi board is all about. The solution provide remote access via the Ethernet port of a NanoPi NEO board, and connects to the DUT (Device under Test) via HDMI, Ethernet, USB and other […]

August 22, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

n-fuse LoRaWAN Concentrator mini PCIe Card Comes with either SX1301 or SX1308 Chip

Most gateways are based on Semtech SX1301 chip, but the company unveiled a SX1308 chip for picocell gateways back in 2016 that’s supposed to be cheaper and used indoors. Designs have been slow to come to market, but a few have been launched recently including n-fuse LRWCCx-MPCIE LoRaWAN concentrator mini PCIe card that comes with either SX1301 or SX1308 chip, and is compatible with Semtech’s Pico Gateway design. n-fuse LRWCCx-MPCIE key features & specifications: LoRa Connectivity SX1301/ SX1308 digital base band processor with dual SX1257 Tx/Rx front-ends Output power level up to 23 dBm u.FL connector (50 Ω impedance) for external antenna 868 MHz model Frequency Range – 863 to 870 MHz Sensitivity – Up to -124 dBm at SF7 (BW 125 KHz), up to -138 dBm at SF12 (BW 125 KHz) 915 MHz model Frequency Range – 915 to 928 MHz Sensitivity – Up to -125 dBm at SF7 […]

August 21, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Embedded Base Boot Requirements (EBBR) Project Aims to Standardize Booting on Embedded Systems

Desktop and server systems relies on standardized interfaces between the bootloader and the OS like UEFI and ACPI, but for embedded systems the way the bootloader, often U-boot, handles the boot flow may vary greatly between targets. Arm and its partners already worked on this in the server space with the Server Base Architecture Specification (SBSA) , and more specifically the Server Base Boot Requirements (SBBR) within the specification that requires the use of both UEFI and ACPI on servers. Arm has now done something similar with the Embedded Base Boot Requirements (EBBR) project that targets specifically embedded systems, is based on a subset of UEFI, and works with either ACPI or device tree. EBBR specification once implemented in bootloaders like U-boot or Tianocore/EDK2 should allow a single version of an OS image to boot on multiple platforms without the per-platform customization required today.. In practical terms it means the […]